History

Michael Collins: The Irish Prophet Of Urban Guerrilla Warfare

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Few figures in the history of guerrilla warfare have been as influential and successful as Michael Collins (1890-1922), the Irish revolutionary leader.  His tactical and strategic mastery of urban guerrilla techniques showed what a determined minority could do against an oppressive system of domination.  His career is said to have been studied carefully by such widely disparate figures as Mao Zedong and Yitzak Shamir.

He was born on October 12, 1890 in County Cork, Ireland, as the youngest of eight children.  The Ireland into which he was born was subject to direct British rule.  But Irish nationalism was in his blood: his father’s family had had connections with the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and he imbibed from this well as a youth.

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On Making Setbacks Appear To Be Advances

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Conflict surges back and forth.  There will be advances, and there will be reverses.  It is inevitable:  no one who is actively engaged in the games of life will be able to avoid reverses.  But then the question becomes:  how may reverses be characterized as gains?

If you believe that this is not a question worth asking, then I would disagree strongly with you.  There are times when it will be necessary to conceal the magnitude of one’s reverses, so as not to embolden the enemy.

Remember:  you will normally have very few allies.  Most people want to see you fail, so that their inaction and timidity are thereby affirmed.  We must be mindful of human nature, which in these matters resembles the proverbial crab in the bucket, clawing at every other crab, to the detriment of all.

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Paul Von Lettow-Vorbeck: The Greatest German Commander Of The Great War

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The leadership principle of “economy of management” holds that we should strive to do more with less.  If the ability to do much with limited resources is a measure of greatness, then few field commanders in twentieth century military history are greater than Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck.  His name is relatively unknown today, but a recounting of his exploits in East Africa during the First World War leave no room for doubt that this was one of the few truly great men of that conflict.  His tactics and innovations form the foundation for modern rules of guerrilla warfare.

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Take The Initiative And Do The Unexpected

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Your enemies are slothful, satisfied, and unwilling to tolerate pain and discomfort.  They wish to be comfortable, to enjoy their privileges, and to spend their days in leisure.

They would rather hate on you than do any work to improve themselves.

They are cozy in their little domains.  You, on the other hand, are willing to head out into the wasteland:

Your enemies are afraid of the wasteland.  But you embrace it.  You have conquered your fear of it.  You are willing to do what is necessary, unlike them.  And this is why you will triumph, and they will not.  Take the initiative, and keep moving.

Several examples illustrate this point.

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The Apple Of Empress Eudocia

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I came across a poignant little tale yesterday, languishing in a forgotten volume of history on the reign of the Roman emperor Theodosius II (A.D. 401-450).  The book is the Chronographia of the ecclesiastical historian John Malalas (c. 491-578).

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The Ethic Of Prison Camp Survival

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One of the greatest accounts of suffering and survival that I’ve read is the book Prisoners of the Japanese by writer Gavan Daws.  It’s a compendium of anecdotes, stories, and harrowing accounts of Allied prisoners taken by the Japanese Army in the Pacific.

More than this, it is a painstakingly-assembed oral record of the men–almost all of them dead now–who lived and survived in now-forgotten hellholes like Changi Prison, Cabanatuan, the Burma-Siam railroad, Davao, and a dozen other places.

Thousands of men from the armed forces of the United States, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand, and the Netherlands were done to death in these camps, either by disease, forced labor, starvation, or related causes.

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How The Romans Collected Beehives In The Wild

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Who Was Columella?

In perusing forgotten volumes, we occasionally come across something of great interest.  I had one such experience yesterday, and thought that writing about it would be a refreshing departure from some recent more serious fare.  Sometimes learning should be frivolous.

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The Wreck Of The “Medusa”: Ineptitude, Bad Leadership, And Tragedy

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As part of the 1815 Peace of Paris settlement that ended the Napoleonic Wars, England agreed to cede to France some West African possessions near Gambia and Senegal.  To implement this turnover, the French maritime authorities sent the vessel Medusa and three smaller ships to the Senegalese coast:  these were named the Echo, the La Loire, and the Argus.  The Medusa itself was captained by one Viscount Hugues Duroy de Chaumereys, a man who had had very little navigational experience.  The Medusa sailed from the island of Aix on June 17, 1816.

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The Rise And Fall Of Empires: Ibn Khaldun’s Theory Of Social Development

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The most remarkable figure in medieval historiography was Abd al-Rahman Ibn Khaldun; his name in Arabic is أبو زيد عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن خلدون الحضرمي‎, but this is mercifully shortened to us simply as Ibn Khaldun.  He was an urbane and well-traveled figure, whose life experiences taught him intimate lessons on both rulers and ruled.  He was born in Tunis, North Africa, in 1332 and received the best education of his day; his absorption of knowledge was made easier, he tells us, by his zealous devotion to travel and study.

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The Worst Weapon Ever Made

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The greed and callousness of combat weapons designers have resulted in the deaths of many men.  Nowhere else has this fact been more starkly portrayed than in the story of what may be the worst small arm ever made, the Chauchat (also called the Fusil-Mitrailleur mle 1915, or the CSRG).  It was a French light machine gun designed for use at the squad level on the eve of the First World War.  The story of the Chauchat reveals much about the workings of the military-industrial complex, and how that combination can work to undermine the welfare of an army.

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